Aaron Bruhl spoke at the AALS annual meeting on a panel
sponsored by the AALS Section on Legislation and the Law of the Political
Process. The topic was "Statutory Interpretation and Separation of
Powers."

Leslie Griffin spoke on Jan. 7 at the AALS conference on a
hot topics panel about a case currently pending before the Supreme Court, Hosanna-Tabor
Evangelical Lutheran Church & School v. EEOC. Prof. Griffin published
the December 2011 Supplement for her casebook, Law and Religion.

Jim Hawkins was elected to serve on the Executive
Committee for the AALS Section on Commercial and Related Consumer Law.

Tracy Hester finished the Fall 2011 semester by teaching
environmental law during a week-long UHLC program for Petrobras’ in-house legal
department. While attending the AALS conference in Washington, DC, he
participated in a meeting of environmental law program directors at member
schools. On Jan. 12, Prof. Hester was the keynote speaker for the Air &
Waste Management Association’s annual conference on clean air law in Houston,
where he discussed the U.S. Supreme Court’s upcoming environmental docket, and
on Jan. 17, he hosted the first meeting of the American Law Institute’s
workgroup for an environmental and energy law project.

Geoffrey Hoffman's law review article, with
co-author Susham Modi, “The War on Terror as a Metaphor for Immigration
Regulation: A Critical View of a Distorted Debate,” has been accepted for
publication by the Iowa Journal of Gender, Race, and Justice. A working
copy of the article is available at http://ssrn.com/abstract=1974520, and the
article made SSRN's Top 10 download lists for CSN: Language (Topic); CSN: Law
(Topic); Cognitive Linguistics: Cognition, Language, Gesture eJournal;
Immigration, Refugee & Citizenship Law eJournal; and Law & Rhetoric
eJournal. On Dec. 16, 2011, Prof. Hoffman attended the American Immigration
Lawyers' Association (AILA) meeting with Executive Office for Immigration
Review (EOIR) judges at Catholic Charities-Cabrini Center, where several
Houston immigration judges discussed issues involving the immigration courts.

Lonny Hoffman completed work on his article, “Twombly and
Iqbal's Measure.” The paper was subsequently accepted for publication by the Federal
Courts Law Review (peer- and judge-reviewed). He presented the paper, by
invitation, at Northwestern Univ. Law School's Conference on Empirical Legal
Studies and, thereafter, to the U.S. Judicial Conference's Civil Rules Advisory
Committee in Washington DC. Separately, Prof. Hoffman's prior work (and
recommendations he made to the House Judiciary Committee) were manifested in
the passage of one provision of the Federal Courts Jurisdiction and Venue Act
(section relating to transfers of venue under 28 USC 1404), that became law on
Dec. 7, 2011. Closer to home, Prof. Hoffman served on a subcommittee of the
Supreme Court of Texas's Advisory Rules Committee tasked with drafting a
new rule to implement provisions of H.B. 274. As Editor of The Advocate,
the quarterly journal of the Litigation Section of the State Bar of Texas,
Prof. Hoffman oversaw the publication of the journal's latest symposium issue:
Energy Law Litigation (Winter 2011, vol. 57). Prof. Hoffman and the rest of the
editorial board are currently working on volumes 58 (Spring 2012) and 59
(Summer 2012).

Craig Joyce announced the completion of an oral history
of famed Southwestern legal Historian Joseph W. McKnight of Southern Methodist
University Dedman School of Law, the first in a planned series of such
histories for the American Society for Legal History’s “ASLH History” website.

Douglas Moll will become the chair of the AALS Section on
Agency, Partnerships, LLC’s and Unincorporated Business Associations in January
2012. Prof. Moll was invited to speak at the Texas Center for the Judiciary’s
program for state court judges in Texas in January and February 2012. He will
be speaking on minority shareholder rights under Texas law. Prof. Moll’s
symposium article, “Of Donahue and Fiduciary Duty: Much Ado About . . . ?,” was
recently published in the Western New England Law Review.

Tom Oldham‘s collection of uniform laws pertaining to
various family law topics with some commentary, Oldham’s Family Law: Uniform
Laws Affecting the Family, was recently published by West. Prof. Oldham has
once again been invited to serve on the Executive Committee of the AALS Family
Law Section.

Michael A. Olivas was interviewed by a number of
trade press and legal newspapers about the AALS Annual Meeting events and
developments, where his remarks were quoted. He presided over the Association’s
Annual Meeting, with over 3500 participants, staff, and vendors; his term as
AALS President ended on Jan. 9, 2012, and he will serve as an officer for
another year, as Immediate Past President. On Jan. 13, Prof. Olivas coordinated
a UH conference celebrating the new UH archives on Texas lawyer Alonso S.
Perales (1898-1960), and he will edit the conference papers in a book entitled In
Defense of My People: Alonso S. Perales and the Development of Mexican-American
Public Intellectuals (Arte Publico Press). Prof. Olivas reviewed a book
proposal manuscript on higher education legal issues for Johns Hopkins
University Press.

Jordan Paust’s article on “Constitutionality of U.S.
Participation in the U.N. Authorized War in Libya” has been accepted for publication
in the Emory International Law Review (2012). His paper on “Propriety of
Self-Defense Targetings of Members of al Qaeda and Applicable Principles of
Distinction and Proportionality” will be published in 18 ILSA Journal of
International and Comparative Law (2012); it was a paper delivered at the
annual meeting of the American Branch of the International Law Association in
New York last October.

Jessica L. Roberts commented on the potential applicability of the Americans with Disabilities Act to recent bans on hiring smokers on Houston Public Radio's All Things Considered on Jan. 17.

Bret Wells participated in an academic roundtable
discussion on fundamental tax reform hosted by the majority and minority staffs
of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Jan. 5-6. The Committee staff extended
an invitation to 46 professors representing 37 law schools from around the
country.